In
Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas (1990), the
director plays an ingenious slight-of-hand trick of the mind, using 146 minutes
of cinema to simulate the process of a bullet ejecting from a gun. As the
picture progresses, the faster and more haphazard it becomes, with Scorsese
leaving out more and more information, culminating in Henry Hill’s famous “last
day” sequence and concluding the film with a gun being fired directly to the
audience.

In
his latest film, The Wolf of Wall Street,
he pulls-off something similar. The Wolf
of Wall Street is a 3-hour long sales pitch that uses pure cinema to
replicate the relationship and exchange one goes through with a
stockbroker. The movie begins with
kindness and enticement, which turns scrumptious and exhilarating, and finally
moves on to become all-out abusive and downright repulsive. It is a movie lit
and shot so lethargically and cut so randomly (especially coming from a
director of such esteem) that one, at first or even second glance, might not
realize what is actually being done to them: This is a 179 minute
get-rich-quick seminar.

The
film is based on the memoir of Jordan Belfort and chronicles his rise and fall
through securities fraud and corruption on Wall Street and Long Island with his
company Stratton Oakmont Inc. Belfort narrates (or sells, rather) the film
event by event as they occur, sometimes addressing the audience directly. The
opening of the film is quite strange, with the tag of the Stratton Oakmont logo
followed by an advertisement. This opening places us off-balance immediately.

Jordan
then introduces himself and takes us back to when he was a newly married, 22-year-old
“Connector” for a Wall Street firm in order to complete his Series 7. Leonardo
DiCaprio plays Jordan in what is hands-down the best performance of his career
and one of the many, many, many remarkable things he does is to still be
consummately believable as a 22-year-old.

He
befriends his boss Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey) who coaches him on the
lifestyle required for such a job, which includes a rotation of martinis, a
heavy dose of cocaine and at least 2 orgasms a day. This is the film’s key
scene, which Scorsese shoots so matter-of-factly that we constantly ask
ourselves why. In doing this, it permeates the rest of the film because all the
enticing hedonism that we hear and all the queasy dread that we feel will come
to fruition.

Unfortunately
for Jordan, his first day as a broker just happens to be 19th
October, 1987, otherwise known as Black Monday, when the stock dropped 508
points, the biggest fall since 1929. But after doing miraculously well with
some penny stocks, he initiates Stratton Oakmont with fellow conspirator and
drug addict Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) and dumps his wife for a “better” one
(Margot Robbie).

Scorsese
and longtime editor and collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker give us all this
information in such an uncoordinated manner that is a little more than
disturbing. Aspect ratios consistently swap, shot reverses don’t match and at
times even the sound mix doesn’t sync. It is as if the cinematic elements of the
film have declared war on each other and that the film itself is falling apart
due to its makers’ lack of modulation. I could be accused of giving Scorsese
the benefit of the doubt here, but if I am it isn’t because I want to go down
with the ship. But because this is what I believe this film, which I have now
seen three times, is about.

Scenes
constantly play for twice as long as one expects with the ensemble clearly
improvising much of the dialogue. Scorsese keeps these scenes long for thematic
effect: we gasp at the beginning of the scene due to the shock of what is being
discussed, the longer the scene goes the more we begin to laugh, and finally,
by the time any of these conversations finally reach their end, we are not
laughing at all. We feel upset and unhinged at/for these people who are not
addicted to being rich, but to wanting
to be rich. Writer Terence Winter’s gives DiCaprio several unceasing
Patton-like monologues where Jordan rallies his troops before battle begins. The
ensemble cast itself is vast and varied, with every actor beautifully committing
to the craziness.

This
is the difference between discovery and understanding. Discovery is an exciting
feeling; understanding is a bitter one - at least when first experiencing it. This is not dissimilar to two previous
Scorsese films, The King of Comedy (1983)
and After Hours (1984) – both
masterpieces. The Wolf of Wall Street,
however, is the funniest film Scorsese has ever made. A sequence in particular
involving Jordan and Donnie’s addiction to Lemon Quaaludes (that brazenly
shows-off both DiCaprio’s capability and Scorsese’s love of Jerry Lewis) will
stand the test of cinematic time.

Almost
six years after a horrific economic collapse in 2008 caused by massive fraud,
almost all the financial executives responsible have walked away with their
personal fortunes intact. None of the debaucherous, disgusting situations
depicted in The Wolf of Wall Street are
as infuriating as that simple fact. And as the film concludes (with a similar
outcome), Scorsese produces a final shot that explains why. Scorsese shows us,
essentially, a mirror image and after the glee this 3-hour sales pitch has
given us, we are left with nothing but the bitter truth. It is the other side
of the Goodfellas coin.

No
American filmmaker has devoted so much of his oeuvre to dissecting the American
way-of-life more than Martin Scorsese. The
Wolf of Wall Street is the story of an intoxicated American seen through
the eyes of a sober one. As a movie, I must agree that there are some
mishandled moments and some indifferently executed compositions from an artist as
inspired as Scorsese. But as a piece of cinema, I think it is a magnificent
achievement.